Tag Archives: posts in which i talk about race

[When I am the only person wanting to] Talk about Race

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I’ve read the Millennials are the color-blind generation, and it’s always bothered me a bit. To be honest, I was hoping that I not be the person to break the bad news to my kids why this optimism is misplaced.

Millennials, as a whole, feel that colorblindness is something to strive toward, yet they believe in “celebrating diversity” within their “post-racial” generation. According to research compiled by MTV for a public affairs campaign to address bias, entitled “Look Different,” millennials believe they are more tolerant and diverse, profess a deeper commitment to equality and fairness, and are less afflicted with “different treatment” than previous generations. Latinpost.com

There really is no point to this post – like most of my posts here. Yet another LOL-oh-so-hilarious irony that’s so sharp it cuts. Let me rewind a bit.

Scene: Dinner table

Cast: My family of four. Me. Husband. The two boys.

The subject of homecoming dance came up, well, because we have a 16-year-old. My 11 year old on a lark asked, “Hey, dad, who did you go to homecoming with?”

I laughed. “He went with Auntie Phuong.”

“It’s not Auntie Mai Phuong that we see every Christmas. It’s Auntie Phuong whom you probably don’t remember.” Husb added.

My 11 year old who would have chosen the faction of Candor if we lived in the Divergent universe blurted out with a “gotcha” smirk, “So, you have a thing for Asian women.”

The air froze around me. Or was it instead getting hot? Everything around me simply paused. The voices were coming from far away. I was pulled away from the set but also immediately thrown back down to earth violently.

I sucked in my upper lip and my nostrils might have flared. With my eyes shut tight, I took a deep breath.

I think I am going to lose my shit. 

“So…” I decided that I could not let this slide. Isn’t it part of our job as liberal, feminist, culturally and politically conscientious moms to take full advantage of teaching moments such as this?

“So. You’re suggesting that Dad went out with me not because of anything special about me as a person, but because I am Asian first and foremost?”

I think I am losing this. Look at those blank stares. They, both of them, don’t get it.

16-year-old being the diplomat that he is [Thank you Model UN!] stepped in, trying to broker a peace treaty, “Mom. I think you’re overreacting.”

I was ashamed. What kind of sane mother ruins a great family dinner by reacting so vehemently to her child’s innocent remarks? I stepped away from the table with resignation.

“Liberal, feminist, culturally and politically conscientious mom lost her shit when child spouted an honest, possibly innocent, observation that unfortunately harkened back to unequal racial dynamics and power relations”

The easier route would have been to let it go. But we never take the easier route, do we? So I marched the three steps back to the table, going in for the second round.

“No. I am not overreacting. That’s what we’re told every time we call out racist statements or behaviors. Oh you’re overreacting. It’s just a joke. Don’t take it too seriously. You should learn to take a joke. No. Not any more.”

Again, bless his heart, my 16 year old came to his brother’s defense, “That’s not a racist thing to say. It’s just an attribute. It’s no different than saying someone has a preference…”

I stopped dead right there.

I don’t think I am cut out for this. Fuck all these theories, post-colonial, performative, race and ethnicity, feminist, blah blah blah, they are useless when it comes to parenting. Useless when it comes to parenting this generation of kids. 

This generation of suburban kids who were brought up to be “color blind” by TV programs, YouTube videos, and Tumblr memes and GIFs are ignorantly and blissfully blind to racism. They simply do not believe in racism. And by not believing in racism, they believe that racism does not exist.

It’s like reverse Tinker Bell.

“We don’t believe!” Kids to racism.

Racism, “I am getting weak. I am dying.”

Poof. Racism gone. Dead.

[Scene. Lights up. Back to reality]

They think that people like me who cannot let “race” go are the problem. “Why does everything have to be about race?”

Believe me. I wish I were oblivious too, kids.

 

:-)

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My parents taught me well: never gloat. Never rub it in.

So I will simply put these up with no comments added.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now… In case you are worried that we are all going to get a big head and become complacent and start subscribing to this false belief of a perfect world and have blind faith in the American people, NO WORRIES! There was (and still is?) a trending hashtag on Twitter “VoteWhite”… Yup. I saw a few of them and it’s just as sickening as you’d imagine. In fact, I could not have imagined some of the things that people actually tweeted to the public. They’re not concerned that everybody could see how much of a backwood racist they are? Including their employers? I assume these people are all gainfully employed since unlike the democrats, they do NOT need government assistance being so self-reliant “We built all this” and all. Anyway, keep this in your back pocket and show it to anyone that says, “There is no more racism.”

Thank you to “crazy things racists say openly in the 21st century” for keeping us on our toes.

Peace out.

 

The Yellow Invasion

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By now you probably have heard of “The Super Bowl commercial you probably did not see”.  Former Rep. Pete Hoekstra’s campaign advertisement aired during Super Bowl features a beautiful Chinese woman (or, as he called her later when he was made to explain himself, “a Chinese girl”), complete with a straw hat, bicycle, rice paddy, and “Chinese-sounding” music.

It’s like, HELLO! back to the World of Suzie Wong, Fu Manchu, and Dragon Lady.

 

 

The Internet, at least the part I frequent, was all-a-buzzing, criticizing Hoekstra’s campaign of insensitivity, stupidity, and flat-out lying. There are several areas about this ad that are under criticism:

1. The actress’ perceived accent, fake or otherwise: I was quite moved by people of non-Asian descent being offended by the portrayal of a Chinese person (purported in China even though the scene was actually show somewhere in California) speaking with an accent and “broken” English. I have to admit: I did not see this at all. We have all heard atrocious fake Asian accents, and compared to those, hers is actually subtle (regardless whether the actress is Asian American or Asian Asian).  And the “broken” English amounts to dropping the “S” after a verb which I sometimes do by mistake because, well, I am speaking a foreign language.

I would like to put this out here: Although I would rip anybody’s head off for attempting fake Asian accents, my children’s included, there is no shame in speaking English with an accent. Duh. I tell my kids, “Don’t make fun of people speaking with an accent. They all know one more language than you do. And their English is better than your [insert foreign language].”

2. Her accent is not authentic: Well, we will find out when the APB put out by Lawrence O’Donnell for this poor actress succeeds in tracking her down. Even though I do not like what she did, being a theatre person, I have to give her some slack: Do people understand how hard it is for actors of Asian descent to find roles that are NOT stereotypical in nature?  She actually sounded a bit like me. So now I am sitting here wondering: “Fuck. So people think MINE is broken English and my English sucks?”

I was once criticized by an audience for not having an authentic Chinese accent in the play I was in. I found it hilarious and thought it was a great compliment. What do people think a Chinese accent should sound like? It baffles me really.

3. She does not look Chinese: People say that to me all the fucking time. Well-intentioned criticism like this frustrates me to no end. What IS a Chinese supposed to look like? Is there an encyclopedia of Chinese people that we can look up like a bird watcher’s guidebook? Nope. Not Chinese. Angle of eyes all wrong. Not Chinese either. See? The nose is not in the right place. Coloring is all wrong too. Seriously?

Furthermore, who cares if the actress is Chinese or not? It does not matter whether she is American-born or not either. What matters is that PeteHaveNoClueHoekstra and his people approved an ad with rampant, racist stereotypes (and of course, shameless fear mongering and blatant misinformation regarding debt and economy).

4. Yes, the fear mongering alluding to the misconception about the debt China holds against the US [Remember the Chinese Professor ad in 2010? And the Yellow Peril trope populated by the Fu Man-Chu series in the 1930s?], and the relationship between the debt and the economy. Actually, it is rather insulting that PeteGetNotHoekstra assumes people would believe the line he’s trying to draw between US government spending and jobs being sent overseas. Here, allow me to quote Paul Krugman: [I know not everybody worships him but this article, Nobody Understands Debt, is spot on]:

Deficit-worriers portray a future in which we’re impoverished by the need to pay back money we’ve been borrowing. They see America as being like a family that took out too large a mortgage, and will have a hard time making the monthly payments.

This is, however, a really bad analogy in at least two ways.

First, families have to pay back their debt. Governments don’t — all they need to do is ensure that debt grows more slowly than their tax base…

Second — and this is the point almost nobody seems to get — an over-borrowed family owes money to someone else; U.S. debt is, to a large extent, money we owe to ourselves.

… …

It’s true that foreigners now hold large claims on the United States, including a fair amount of government debt. But every dollar’s worth of foreign claims on America is matched by 89 cents’ worth of U.S. claims on foreigners. And because foreigners tend to put their U.S. investments into safe, low-yield assets, America actually earns more from its assets abroad than it pays to foreign investors. If your image is of a nation that’s already deep in hock to the Chinese, you’ve been misinformed. Nor are we heading rapidly in that direction.

 

Ok. Now that we’ve got the air cleared, could I please start with my psychotic foaming at the mouth now? Thank you.

Nobody seems to be bothered by this. At least, they did not comment on it. My first reaction?

“O.M.G. Is she selling porn??!! Is she trying to get the good ol’ American white boys into her pants?!”

WTF is with the downcast eyes, the come-hither smile? What’s even more bizarre is that she’s supposed to be addressing  Debbie Stabenow, Hoekstra’s opponent in this race. I was seeing Lotus Blossom and Dragon Lady morphed into one right on my computer screen, on a Monday morning, in the fucking 21st century. It was such a visceral reaction that I had to grip the edge of the table to stop myself from screaming; I held my breath in fear because I was half expecting her to say “Me love you long time”… This is THE most offensive stereotyping I have seen so far in the 21st century. PeteMeSuckHoekstra did not even try to hide it. This “character” in his campaign ad is made up of everything that created “Dragon Lady” and sustained this stereotype over the decades. The ad, unapologetically, resurrected the stereotype of women of Asian descent as calculating, treacherous and manipulative a la “Dragon Lady”. Along with that, the ad invokes the fear of the Yellow Peril (originated in the 19th century when Chinese laborers were imported like cattle to the West Coast to build the railroads): only now they stay in China while taking away the jobs from the Americans…

 

Hello? PeteIamNotARacistHoekstra, Fu Man-chu called. He wanted his Dragon Lady back. He said that you could come over to the 1930s to visit her.

 

Thank you, indeed, PeteShowingYourTrueColorHoekstra, for reminding me and for proving to people who like to tell me that “It’s in your head. Racism does not exist any more. Grow some thick skin. Stop whining.” that idiots without self-awareness are still around us. Stay vigilant.

 

 

WTF Wednesday

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I have been thinking that I should make this a weekly feature. There are so many WTF moments, don’t you think? But sometimes when I finally found time, it was NOT Wednesday any more, so I waited, and then I missed another Wednesday…

Anyway, 5 minutes before midnight. STILL Wednesday. And I always have the West Coast to count on when necessary. So quickly some WTF moments from this week and last week:

 

“Tea Party Groups In Tennessee Demand Textbooks Overlook U.S. Founder’s Slave-Owning History”.

Did your jaw hit the desk? Yup. Mine did too. But of course, the Texas Board of Education had approved of revisions to textbooks last year that include

the exploration of the positive aspects of American slavery, lifting the stature of Jefferson S. Davis to that of Abraham Lincoln, and amendments to teach the value of the separation of church and state were voted down by the conservative cadre. Among other controversial amendments that have been approved is the study of the “unintended consequences” of affirmative action.

Actually, you could have just stopped me at “the exploration of the positive aspects of American slavery”. I want to use this piece of sad news as a test stone to people I know: If you are not immediately outraged, if you even “stop and think about it”, you are out. It’s black and white in this case.

 

Newt Gingrich’s three marriages mean he might make a strong president — really 

This is written by a “DR” Keith Ablow so it must be true. The article is published on Foxnews.com so we know it is… *cough* *cough*. This is so quote-worthy so I have to share:

Warning: Don’t drink or eat when you read the following.

So, here’s what one interested in making America stronger can reasonably conclude—psychologically—from Mr. Gingrich’s behavior during his three marriages:

1) Three women have met Mr. Gingrich and been so moved by his emotional energy and intellect that they decided they wanted to spend the rest of their lives with him.

2) Two of these women felt this way even though Mr. Gingrich was already married.

3 ) One of them felt this way even though Mr. Gingrich was already married for the second time, was not exactly her equal in the looks department and had a wife (Marianne) who wanted to make his life without her as painful as possible.

Conclusion: When three women want to sign on for life with a man who is now running for president, I worry more about whether we’ll be clamoring for a third Gingrich term, not whether we’ll want to let him go after one.

And I checked, The Onion had nothing to do with this.  Daily Kos, on the other hand, had a lot of fun analyzing this. Good times.

 

Komen breast cancer charity severs ties with Planned Parenthood

Susan G. Komen for the Cure announced its decision to stop funding Planned Parenthood centers.  “Many suspect the move is a result of political pressure by antiabortion activists,” LA Times added helpfully. You think?!

The Internet was immediately set ablaze and some news reports are saying that donations to Planned Parenthood actually spiked. Yeah, us!

 

 

 

Before I go, let me share something that will make you smile. Thanks to Mary Lee. I have not stopped smiling since I saw it.

Janet Howell, Virginia State Senator, Attaches Rectal Exam Amendment To Anti-Abortion Bill

To protest a bill that would require women to undergo an ultrasound before having an abortion, Virginia State Sen. Janet Howell (D-Fairfax) on Monday attached an amendment that would require men to have a rectal exam and a cardiac stress test before obtaining a prescription for erectile dysfunction medication.

The bad news is, yes, the ultrasound bill passed. The bad-yet-we-can-find-something-good news is, Senator Howell’s amendment failed (naturally) but it was lost by only three votes. 19-21.

Repost: My Problems with “The Help”

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Apparently many of my friends from my “real life” LOVE The Help. Love it. They are telling people on Facebook to “GO SEE THE HELP. RUN. NOT WALK!” including a dear dear friend who studied and wrote about Apartheid in South Africa. As I ponder how much I should share my perspectives with her at the risk of hurting her feelings and alienating her, I re-read my post from January 20. 2010, and nope, my view has not changed. Since the movie adaptation is receiving rave reviews all over and I have not seen my Anglo-Saxon lady friends so enthusiastic about a movie with an African American lead since The Blind Side (yes please argue why the African American characters are at most CO-lead, and you’ll be right in my book), I feel compelled to share this post from almost 2 years ago again.

Or, actually, skip this post entirely and go read My Brown Baby‘s post “I Was the Help —- and My Experience Taught to Dream Big“. If you have been reading my blog and liking what you have been reading, I have a feeling that you are going to appreciate very very much what Denene Millner, the autohor, has to say about the book, the movie and the reception of it. Peace out.

 

REPOSTED from January 20, 2010

I probably don’t need to publish this post on my blog. It is not appealing. It is not good writing. It will not make you laugh out loud. It is not even a proper rant. Besides, it is friggin’ long – I am amazed at how much I tapped out on my iPhod, and tedious. I am not even making any coherent argument, not to mention grammatical errors! Run-on sentences! totally exposing myself as a feeble-minded person. Even the title spells “MEH”.

That being said, I feel this pathological need to be on the record, I guess. Since I have been treating this blog as my diary, I want everything that comes out of my head to be on here. So, sorry about this… mental puke…

I brought the book, The Help, by Kathryn Stockett with me on my flight back home last December. I have had the whole flight between IAD and Narita to ponder on this book. I won’t even attempt at writing a review since I am really not qualified to do so. And at any rate, there are already more than 1,400 reviews on Amazon.com. Furthermore, all the book reviewers in the major news outlets have done so and waxed poetic on this book, with one of them comparing The Help to To Kill A Mocking Bird.* I will just make a list of things that I have been chewing on. By Tap Tap Tap on my iPhone (without a SIM) and therefore heavy editing involved thereafter.

Spoiler alert: If you are thinking of reading this book, you should skip this. I will also be 100% honest with myself, which means I will be contradictory, at times nonsensical, and possibly offending, especially if you love the book.

Confession first: I enjoyed reading this book tremendously. Cliché, yes. Truth is: it IS a page turner. For me. From the moment when I opened it in August when I first received it, I could not completely put Aibileen out of my head until the Christmas week, when I finally had time to sit down and read the book in long stretches.

The stories are riveting. The voices are, as much as I hate using this word because it is often confused with “stereotypical”, or at the very least “archetypal”, the voices sound to me “authentic”. That is, when I was reading it, when I was caught up in the drama of the story that was being expertly told, when I was kept in suspense as to the safety of the women, when I was hoping with clenched fists and a racing hear that they would triumph over evil and that justice would be done. Well, justice be done to a certain extent, in the strict confines of the story-telling.

Now I ask myself: How many Southerners do I know? None.

Do I know any African American domestic help? Nope.

What do I know about Southern dialects and accents? Not a thing.

So what do I know about whether the book is “authentic” or not? Hasn’t this always been the gripe I have against books like Memoirs of a Geisha? That a fiction novel, on account of its main characters being of a non-white race, is evaluated and praised for delivering an “authentic” portrayal. Do we even care whether Dan Brown’s characters are authentic or not?

Damn the identity politics theories I read, classes I took.

I cannot help, in the back of my mind, though I immensely enjoyed the stories of these women, that a white woman took possession of the black women’s stories twice, especially after I read Kathryn Stockett’s personal note at the end of the book: like Skeeter in the story, Stockett wrote the black women’s stories and gained wild success.

I understand the above statement reeks of identity politics, but I cannot help the gnawing feelings in the back of my head.

What bothers me even more is Skeeter’s cajoling, forcing almost, these women into telling her their stories because she was told that she needed to write something that nobody had ever written before in order to get into the publishing world. Throughout I was extremely uncomfortable with her motive: next to the all too real risk to the black women’s lives, her motif seems so trivial. Selfish even. What is the potential downside for her engagement in this feat? None too serious really. And indeed, there was a happy ending for Skeeter. But for Minnie and Aibileen the future remained uncertain.

Although I do wish something horrible would happen to the wrong-doers and was a bit let down when it didn’t, I do applaud the author for not cheapening the story by taking the easy way out. They are still in the mid 1960s in Mississippi and it is not like they are going to all of a sudden find true equality by the end of the book. I need to give the author props for not providing her White readers with an easy cathartic way to assuage the white guilt. “The villain that caused such misery is dead/appropriately punished, all is well in the universe. Now get on with your merry life.”

As I mentioned, the book received gleaming reviews. From White book reviewers. This could be racist on my part, and certainly identity politics at its worst as some might say, nevertheless, I feel I NEED TO know how an African American reader may feel about this book. NOT because a white woman from a privileged family in the South wrote this book, but because, again, despite my immense enjoyment of this book, and yes indeed I feel guilty for liking this book when I started wondering how my friends back in my graduate study classes would have said about this book, I cannot ignore the conflation of the tropes: 1. the White heroine being rescued, or finding self-realization, through Black folks around her that she does not socialize with, 2. Black people, unable to help or save themselves, being rescued by a White person.

I imagine this book already optioned by a movie studio. Or soon will be. Anyway you look at it, it IS going to be a great vehicle for some of the outstanding African American actresses, and god only knows how hard it is for a good script with a strong minority character lead to make it all the way to some head honcho’s desk. I do hope that the script and the actor that portrays Leroy would breathe some more life into him rather than the one-dimensional wife-beater. When in doubt, we reach for the things we share as women: abusive husbands, cheating boyfriends, sexist Chauvinistic patriarchs. In that process, our men are further demonized. Joy Luck Club immediately comes to mind. I can’t watch that movie without cringing. Not a single man in that movie is worthy of loving. Is it why it was accepted by the white mainstream audience? “Poor Asian women. They are so much better off over here. Away from their men.”

When The Blind Side came out, and the Internet was all abuzz about what a feel good movie it was, it immediately raised the mental red flag for me. “Feel good” means, to me, “Not for you. You are probably not the target audience/reader. Stay home. Otherwise you won’t feel good.”

I asked an African American columnist whether she planned to see the movie,

“No. We don’t consider that movie an attractive idea.” She said coyly.

* The surest way to incite heated debate against the worth of any book is to compare it to the beloved To Kill a Mocking Bird… So if you hate someone, yeah, go ahead and compare them to Harper Lee.

Sucker Punched

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Warning: This post is a RANT with a heavily identity politics bend. So if you have no time nor patience to listen to People of Color whining “Oh no not that wah-wah we want to be represented crap again!”, please just ignore me when I come back down from my high horse.

I AM BACK! PEOPLE! Remember what I said? That a good case of justifiable (or not who gives a shit? Not me certainly!) indignation is the best way to get me all fired up and ready to go?!

Go like AKIRA!

 

Kicking and screaming like Sucker Punch!

 

I read an article on Racialicious today that made me pause everything I was doing to write a long comment. It surfaces up all the internal debates I have had about identity politics, about ownerships, about representations, about who gets to represent whom, about the gaze.

“An Uncomfortable Silence: Why Is Geek Media Keeping Quiet About The akira Remake?”

Long story short: the manga series and anime films AKIRA have long been revered by fans all over the world, including the self-professed Otakus in the U.S. (I should really write about “Otaku” and the adoption of this self-identity by the youth / geek culture in the U.S. … Focus. Focus!) There has been a rumor for many years that a major adaptation by Hollywood is in the works while fans all over hold their breath waiting for the announcement of WHO will be playing their beloved biker gang in a post-apocalyptic world. Lists of actors have been floating around and it becomes more and more alarming to the Asian American community as EVERYONE attached to play to lead characters so far has been… Lily white.

The GEEK community, usually considered to be progressive and presumably to be more aware of the reality of “racial diversity” in major urban cities in the U.S., has been quiet about this. NO protest. NO griping in the chat rooms.

Seriously? If even the self-professed self-identified Otakus have deserted our cause, why does Hollywood have to give a rat’s ass about under-representation by Asian American actors, especially MALE actors?

 

Anyway, here is my long comment. I am sharing it here in case the editors over at Racialicious deems my comment unworthy of being published over on their site…

Thank you so much for this article! I was just lamenting this fact of Hollywood coopting the fringe Geek Culture (manga, anime) and “Whitewashing” it to try to mainstream it all in the pursuit of something NEW to revitalize the at-risk film industry (Hello YouTube!)

I saw the trailer for Sucker Punch and it looked like a balled-up conglomeration of every Otaku’s fantasy from anime and mange rolled into one. As far as I could tell, all of the lead girls (yes, they are MEANT to be objectified as girls, so no disrespect on my part) are blonde and so pale they glow in the dark. “So this is it? We can’t f*** get a break? They are taking away manga and anime from us too?”

(Let’s not go into the whole obvious issue of the problematic of perpetually objectifying women in the name of empowering them through hyper-sexualization…)

On a bright note, actually, now I think about it, I am not sure whether this counts as a plus or minus but the ONLY U.S. movie I know with an Asian American male lead who is NOT a kung fu master and who actually gets to kiss and gets the girl aka Debbie Gibson (sorry about the spoiler; and IF you don’t know who Debbi Gibson is then you are too young and I shouldn’t be talking to you…) is Vic Chao in… “Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus”…

In this post-Obama juncture, I have many people telling me that we are a “color blind” society and I should NOT be so hung up on race/ethnicity/blah blah blah, implying that by not letting go I am being the “racist” myself because I seem to be the only one seeing race. Now I get it. “Color blind” means “Universal” which in turn applies to “WHITES ONLY” as in “White actors/actresses can represent any culture especially in the post-apocalyptic universe previously residing in manga/anime aka Japanese culture”. Sorry. I’d better stop since I am merely repeating myself: I have written about this in my graduate school more than a decade ago.

Things I Missed

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I have been back to my real life since two Sundays ago.  After a week on the beach, doing nothing, having no appointments to make, no place to rush to, I find it hard to adjust back to life in the suburbia 100%. On the first few days after The Beach, I caught myself thinking that I was about to get ready to go to the beach. I got a bit disoriented when I was driving because I was expecting to make the right turn and go into the development where the beach house was. In an almost imperceptible way, memories from the beach (even when I did not know I was remembering specifically any scene, any event, so perhaps it is more aptly an “aura”) seeped into reality as I am trying to adjust to life back to normal.

Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.

Disorientation. It happens every year after The Beach. Naturally it does get better as the week of post-coastal coital tristesse advances.

Perhaps because I now have a Tamagotchi blog to keep, I am even more self-reflective; I was caught by surprise by how I reacted with happiness to some of the things back home. Things I hadn’t realized I’d missed while I was doing The Beach… in addition to the Internet and robust Wireless coverage, it goes without saying.

My bed. Ok. Our bed. And I did consciously miss it during The Beach. At least my aching back did. A lot.

When we moved into our current house ten years ago, my husband and I made a conscious decision to get ourselves the best bed we could afford without going against our principle, “Only losers pay retail”. Considering how on average human beings spend one third of their lives in bed (i.e. 8+ out of 24 hours every day in theory), a firm and comfortable bed that allows you to wake up refreshed is one of the best investment with the highest ROI a person can make.  Our bed is one of those memory foams similar to Tempur-Pedic, and true to the marketing claim, we seldom disturb each other when we lie down or get up from the bed.  The downside of having such an awesome bed is 1) We feel like going straight to bed most of the time, and 2) We are so spoiled now that we find it hard to fall asleep, stay asleep, and wake up without kinks or aches when we travel.

.

My car.

Raise your hand if you’ve ever heard a joke about driving while female? How about driving while Asian? Now put those two together, you got? Me.

I have to write about my love for driving one day, but for now, it suffices to say that I missed my car even though we had a nice and clean rental car, a Toyota Camry, that week.  I didn’t realize that I missed my tiny hatchback. In fact, after a long absence, I tend to be hesitant when I put my foot on the gas pedal, feeling like a virgin driver. I supplied pressure with my foot tentatively and my car purred (the way a small, non-sporty car does anyway). I thought, “Oh how I have missed you!” I love the familiarity. The comfort and ease. The confidence I exude when I am behind the steering wheel of my itty bitty car.  Possibly the smallest, everyday car, used to transport kids on a regular basis within the 15-mile radius of Suburbia. The pride, most likely undeserved, I feel in my heart when I am surrounded by gas-guzzling SUVs.  Especially when I encounter a Cadillac Escalade on the road (which for some reason happens more often than I wish), I see my itty bitty superduper hatchback as a finger extended in its general direction.

Booyah!

.

Chicago. Or any other larger city with a diverse population where I will not be stared at like a zoo animal. Where I do not stand out. Where I blend into the mosaic tapestry of life effortlessly. Where I will be ignored, just like everybody else.

For one reason or another we end up in the northern most tip of OBX every year where even the groundskeepers are white.  No shit. Even the seasonal workers they employ in the stores and restaurants are of Eastern European origins.  This year, for the first time, I saw two Asian cashiers at the supermarket, and (I did not imagine this!) they looked startled when they saw me at the checkout line.

Yeah, I am going to sound like a reverse-racist but it gets on my nerves every single year on the beach, this lack of diversity. This pervasive whiteness. I am never the only person of color there because my sister-in-law is of Asian Indian heritage. (Born and bred in the U.S. of A.).  Although she laughs every time I mention how 1) this has got to be the worst week for their property value, 2) the two of us double the population of Asian descent instantly, 3) “I am going to integrate now!” before I head towards the local super market, she may not be as sensitive as I am.  I, the product of years of Ivory-Tower immersion in race theories, American histories, cultural histories, identity theories, racial politics, post-colonial literature and theories, what have you.  Every year I counted the number of people of color I saw on the beach, in the pool, in the general area. This year I saw on the beach one African American family and a family of white parents and their children adopted from Asia. Then there were me and my sister-in-law.  That’s it.  Never more than a dozen.

The staring.  The surreptitious looks.  Sometimes became too much.  Without knowing it, I became edgy, stressed, and bitter because I was on display.

I whisper-yelled at the kids to behave more than I should have done, I didn’t know then but I do now, because I wanted to make sure that THESE PEOPLE not walk away with ANY false impression of Asian people. God forbid if I were the only Asian person they have come in close contact with in a shared environment, i.e. outside of Chinese restaurants, dry cleaners, nail salons, [fill in stereotypically Asian-owned businesses]. I certainly don’t want them to draw any negative conclusions about Asian-looking people because of the mistakes I made. (Great! Now they are going to think that Asian mothers yell at their kids too much! Fuck!)

I was ON the whole time. I was on my best behavior. I made great efforts to speak with as little hint of my foreign accent as possible because FUCK if I wanted to perpetuate the stereotype of Asians as perpetual, inscrutable, foreigners in this country. (The irony of me being indeed a FOREIGNER was not lost on me. Thank you very much. And I hope you all American-born people of Asian descent appreciate my fighting this battle alongside you so please no more making fun of people speaking in a foreign accent so you can feel, you know, American…)

As soon as I stepped off the plane at O’Hare Airport and emerged from the jetway, I was greeted with faces of varying shades in the bustling gate area.  I let out a sigh of relief.  The tension in my shoulders, which I hadn’t known was there, dissipated with such force it was physically perceptible to me.   The chip on  my shoulder melted, figuratively and physically even though I hadn’t realized I’d been wearing one.  I was able to relax.  I did not become fully aware of it until I no longer felt subconsciously the need to represent.

Yup. I missed not having to represent.

Wanker Wednesday: My problems with “The Help”

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I probably don’t need to publish this post on my blog. It is not appealing. It is not good writing. It will not make you laugh out loud. It is not even a proper rant. Besides, it is friggin’ long – I am amazed at how much I tapped out on my iPhod, and tedious. I am not even making any coherent argument, not to mention grammatical errors! Run-on sentences! totally exposing myself as a feeble-minded person. Even the title spells “MEH”.

That being said, I feel this pathological need to be on the record, I guess. Since I have been treating this blog as my diary, I want everything that comes out of my head to be on here. So, sorry about this… mental puke…

I brought the book, The Help, by Kathryn Stockett with me on my flight back home last December. I have had the whole flight between IAD and Narita to ponder on this book. I won’t even attempt at writing a review since I am really not qualified to do so. And at any rate, there are already more than 1,400 reviews on Amazon.com. Furthermore, all the book reviewers in the major news outlets have done so and waxed poetic on this book, with one of them comparing The Help to To Kill A Mocking Bird.* I will just make a list of things that I have been chewing on. By Tap Tap Tap on my iPhone (without a SIM) and therefore heavy editing involved thereafter.

Spoiler alert: If you are thinking of reading this book, you should skip this. I will also be 100% honest with myself, which means I will be contradictory, at times nonsensical, and possibly offending, especially if you love the book.

Confession first: I enjoyed reading this book tremendously. Cliché, yes. Truth is: it IS a page turner. For me. From the moment when I opened it in August when I first received it, I could not completely put Aibileen out of my head until the Christmas week, when I finally had time to sit down and read the book in long stretches.

The stories are riveting. The voices are, as much as I hate using this word because it is often confused with “stereotypical”, or at the very least “archetypal”, the voices sound to me “authentic”. That is, when I was reading it, when I was caught up in the drama of the story that was being expertly told, when I was kept in suspense as to the safety of the women, when I was hoping with clenched fists and a racing hear that they would triumph over evil and that justice would be done. Well, justice be done to a certain extent, in the strict confines of the story-telling.

Now I ask myself: How many Southerners do I know? None.

Do I know any African American domestic help? Nope.

What do I know about Southern dialects and accents? Not a thing.

So what do I know about whether the book is “authentic” or not? Hasn’t this always been the gripe I have against books like Memoirs of a Geisha? That a fiction novel, on account of its main characters being of a non-white race, is evaluated and praised for delivering an “authentic” portrayal. Do we even care whether Dan Brown’s characters are authentic or not?

Damn the identity politics theories I read, classes I took.

I cannot help, in the back of my mind, though I immensely enjoyed the stories of these women, that a white woman took possession of the black women’s stories twice, especially after I read Kathryn Stockett’s personal note at the end of the book: like Skeeter in the story, Stockett wrote the black women’s stories and gained wild success.

I understand the above statement reeks of identity politics, but I cannot help the gnawing feelings in the back of my head.

What bothers me even more is Skeeter’s cajoling, forcing almost, these women into telling her their stories because she was told that she needed to write something that nobody had ever written before in order to get into the publishing world. Throughout I was extremely uncomfortable with her motive: next to the all too real risk to the black women’s lives, her motif seems so trivial. Selfish even. What is the potential downside for her engagement in this feat? None too serious really. And indeed, there was a happy ending for Skeeter. But for Minnie and Aibileen the future remained uncertain.

Although I do wish something horrible would happen to the wrong-doers and was a bit let down when it didn’t, I do applaud the author for not cheapening the story by taking the easy way out. They are still in the mid 1960s in Mississippi and it is not like they are going to all of a sudden find true equality by the end of the book. I need to give the author props for not providing her White readers with an easy cathartic way to assuage the white guilt. “The villain that caused such misery is dead/appropriately punished, all is well in the universe. Now get on with your merry life.”

As I mentioned, the book received gleaming reviews. From White book reviewers. This could be racist on my part, and certainly identity politics at its worst as some might say, nevertheless, I feel I NEED TO know how an African American reader may feel about this book. NOT because a white woman from a privileged family in the South wrote this book, but because, again, despite my immense enjoyment of this book, and yes indeed I feel guilty for liking this book when I started wondering how my friends back in my graduate study classes would have said about this book, I cannot ignore the conflation of the tropes: 1. the White heroine being rescued, or finding self-realization, through Black folks around her that she does not socialize with, 2. Black people, unable to help or save themselves, being rescued by a White person.

I imagine this book already optioned by a movie studio. Or soon will be. Anyway you look at it, it IS going to be a great vehicle for some of the outstanding African American actresses, and god only knows how hard it is for a good script with a strong minority character lead to make it all the way to some head honcho’s desk. I do hope that the script and the actor that portrays Leroy would breathe some more life into him rather than the one-dimensional wife-beater. When in doubt, we reach for the things we share as women: abusive husbands, cheating boyfriends, sexist Chauvinistic patriarchs. In that process, our men are further demonized. Joy Luck Club immediately comes to mind. I can’t watch that movie without cringing. Not a single man in that movie is worthy of loving. Is it why it was accepted by the white mainstream audience? “Poor Asian women. They are so much better off over here. Away from their men.”

When The Blind Side came out, and the Internet was all abuzz about what a feel good movie it was, it immediately raised the mental red flag for me. “Feel good” means, to me, “Not for you. You are probably not the target audience/reader. Stay home. Otherwise you won’t feel good.”

I asked an African American columnist whether she planned to see the movie,

“No. We don’t consider that movie an attractive idea.” She said coyly.

* The surest way to incite heated debate against the worth of any book is to compare it to the beloved To Kill a Mocking Bird… So if you hate someone, yeah, go ahead and compare them to Harper Lee.

WTF Wednesday: Eye? Aye!

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It is Thursday (and actually soon will be Friday…) Yes, I am cheating again by backdating my post. But it IS Wednesday somewhere in the world, right? Oh. Who cares. It is a WTF post by me when I’ve got my WTF glasses on. (Yeah, this line is for you my Wicked Kitchen Lady…) So WTF ANYTIME… FTW!

We received a Christmas card from a high school friend of my husband’s. The address label on the envelop was one of those personalized family labels with the faces that are supposed to represent each member in the family.

Get your family labels here! Personalized to fit your family!

Our friends are of Asian descent, and therefore the figures on the address label all have black hair, and it does remind us of them: with the appropriate hair styles. To my surprise, my husband was interested in getting a set for us.

“Maybe for next Christmas?” He emailed me with the link.

Don’t you just love how they add things to your list with a nice question like that?

Fine. I thought. It could be cute. Naturally I was already wondering how we were going to represent our multiracial family. Perhaps I could get some message out with each letter I mail. Represent! I thought. Things could get very interesting. I thought. Little did I know that it was going to be VERY INTERESTING alright.

I browsed through the site, looked at the samples, and clicked on ORDER:

Choose your head and hair style here: Male and female heads

They do have a wide selection for heads/hair styles. At this point, my kids became curious in this project and they were getting excited, impatiently waiting for their turn to choose their own faces.

“Oh oh oh. Choose this one!”

“No. Mom looks more like this one!”

Finally we (i.e. the kids) settled on a hair style for me.

So many heads, so little time... to make my decision I mean...

By selecting the head style, we were then shown a variety (i.e. THREE) of different skin tones and many hair colors to choose from.

So many hair colors to choose from! Should I go with my natural color or my highlighted color?

“Mom, pick the Dark Brown Hair. That looks more like you.” My oldest said.

“Mom, I am not sure what you should choose for your skin color. That one is too light, and that one is too dark.” My youngest said. He is a man of 100% honesty.

I was relieved that the instruction gave me the permission to select “Fair Skin” for myself, since I consider my complexion to be “tan”. I thought I’d go with Black Hair and Tan Skin because I did not want people to mistake me for a non-Asian person. However, my hair has not been BLACK BLACK for almost a decade: I discovered highlights many years ago and baby, let me tell you: I ain’t gonna go back. Fine. She looks too happy anyway. What I need really is a scowling face. I went with the kids’ suggestions.

Here comes the WTF moment. The first WTF moment…

(The following is a “dramatized” version of the screen I saw at the initial WTF moment. I went through the ordering process just so I could grab a screenshot to show you, my friends. You are welcome)

My jaw dropped. Add-on Features. “Asian eyes” is one of the 3 add-on features offered by the company. Along with Glasses and Santa Hat.

Asian Eyes. One of the only 3 add-on features. Me so honored.

“What the…?!” I stopped myself short. The kids looked at me, then looked at each other.

“Mom. You should check ‘Asian Eyes’ because you are Asian.” Mr. Monk, my youngest, said. With all honesty.

“Shut up.” My oldest chastised his brother.

“Hmmm. Honey, do you know that they offer ‘Asian Eyes’ as an Add-On Feature?! Next to Santa Hat and Glasses?!” I hollered at husband.

“Mom. What do the, eh, Asian Eyes look like?” My oldest asked. Now fully invested in this new development as well.

So we searched high and low on the website, and we finally found it. Ta da!

WTF Moment Numéro deux…

Seriously. Do those eyes even belong to a human?

“What the heck is this? Voldemort?!” I was so startled by the unreality of it I burst out laughing.

My oldest was indignant. “That is so racist!”

“What is racist?” My youngest asked. But fortunately, immediately, “Those don’t look like your eyes. You should just use the black dots.”

I laughed even harder when I saw the labels for kids: “Have your kids feel special!”

Asian eyes, what? for the straight A kids? (Yes yes, I know, yet another stereotype...)

Oh, little Jennifer is going to feel special alright… When she is shown to be some evil spirit, creepy imbecile, or wicked mastermind with no pupils.

CODA: I am not trying to read too much into this. I am sure the company does this out of good intentions. What kind of idiot would want to set out to offend paying customers, right? They are trying so hard to operate in this multi-cultural, multi-racial, complex and wonderful world that the United States of America has become. But seriously, dude? Those “Asian Eyes” are beyond creepy. They gave me nightmares. I was wondering why you stopped there? Why didn’t you include an Add-on feature for Coolie Hat? (Ok. Ok. I can’t help it!…)

Asian eyes? Take that!

WTF Wednesday: Fighting “I Guess I’m a Racist” with “I Guess I’m a Lazy Ass”!

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UPDATE (12-17-2009):

I realized that my attempt at satire actually makes it even more confusing. My apology. I will lay it out straight: The “I’m a Racist” ad is ridiculous also because it predicted on the faulty assumption #1 HCR is mostly about the African Americans #2 Ergo I have been accused of being a racist because I am against HCR. OR, if you criticize my criticism of HCR, you are accusing me of being a racist. In my mind, #1 is incorrect, and therefore #2 is incorrect. (This is the argument I was trying to make by invoking the fact that there are also a lot of POOR WHITES who are trapped in the poverty cycle AND the arguments, on both sides, seem to have overlooked their plights).

The new ad “I Guss I’m A Lazy Ass” I am proposing here is for the Pro-HCR camp as a comeback. And it is satirical. Hard to convey “satirical” tone with words since you can’t see my Quote Fingers or Jazz Hands… It plays upon #1. The assumption by many in the anti-HCR camp (anti-Public-option) that people without health care are lazy asses who cannot hold a job, etc. Why should we help those people out? #2. This proposed ad would confront that assumption. #3. The prominent representation of white people (a la the prominent representation by the final Black guy in the “I’m a racist” ad), as sarcastically proposed, refers to the common assumption that Poor White People are Poor NOT because they are lazy but because they are unfortunate…

Anyway, it serves me right to be smug enough to think that I can tackle such a controversial and complex issue. This is such a charged subject and as you can see I am confused myself. There is probably no need for this update either since you either got me (for which I am very grateful and would you please come to my house and explain me to my husband?) or you have moved on to more important things (I would have done this if I were you too so no hard feelings), but I feel that I need to clarify things because I am anal retentive. The bottom line is:

I would like to see the government TRYING to help the truly unfortunate out, esp. the millions of children that are not ensured, and if that means I have to pay more taxes, I am fine with it. Will they make some bumbling mistakes along the way? You bet ya. But the expectation of imperfection should not be the excuse for not doing it at all. Have all the countries claiming to be a democracy really adhere to the democratic principles all the time? Are there not corruptions, nepotisms, all sorts of Jackassery going on? You bet ya. Does that mean democracy failed and we should just write it off? I am sure the answer is no.

This I believe:

“No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and nobody should go broke because they get sick.”

The Original Post (as published on 12-16-2009):

Many of you have this feature called Wordless Wednesday every, eh, Wednesday. But me? Not talking? When I have my own soap box right here? Ha. Therefore I decided to start my own tradition called WTF Wednesday.

And conveniently, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, together: what do we have here?!

My token male reader called me out on an evasive post last week, half-assedly commenting on the “I guess I’m a Racist” anti-healthcare reform ad.

Yeah yeah I know I just also wrote this big giant navel-gazing post about how I am going to ignore all of you and just do whatever I want. So I am going to ignore you right now for mocking me…

You are a dick, dick!

Although I have blogged about how I feel about HCR, his comment struck a cord. I was caught red-handed for not following through with my oh-so-big announcement of how I am going to just go ahead and be myself. YOU GOT ME DICK! (No, he really is a dick. I mean, that’s what his blog is called. Eh, never mind…)

So here it is, a week later, assuming (hoping, actually) that I am preaching to the choir, FWIW:

The video is asinine to say the least.  As Professor Melissa Harris-Lacewell succinctly puts it, “THIS sucks the rhetoric air out of the room.”

  1. First of all, the ads (and many comments circulating on the Interweb) unquestionably assume that RACISM operates on the individual level, rather than on the institutional level. Regarding institutionalized racism: You either agree with this, or you don’t. This is my pessimistic conclusion.

  2. Furthermore, the ads (and the subsequent celebratory comments around the Interweb) wrongfully, yet effectively, turned the entire HCR debate around and recast the issue in an ultra emotional light, since most people do not deliberately practice racist beliefs and activities, and most people take it very personally, understandably, when they feel they are being accused of being a racist.

  3. The real issue of HCR, in my opinion, is one about class: the Have’s vs. The Have-Not’s. And we need to recognize that in the U.S., the class issues are inextricably linked to race issues, due to our unique histories. Although many in the African American academia have challenged the “code words” used in the HCR debate, e.g. “Welfare Queens”, “under class”, etc., it does not mean that they are trying to “hijack” the HCR issue with race issues. The poor Whites will also benefit from an improved health care system. And do you know approximately 2/3 of all welfare benefits administered by the government went to poor Whites? Why is that in a discussion on HCR that could benefit all the people who currently do not have any form of health insurance across the board, we don’t hear about these non-non-White folks’ plights?

  4. Somebody should make a video with all sorts of people speaking to the camera, “I guess I am a lazy ass,” to move the dial all the way to the other end: “You cannot afford health insurance, it must be your own damn fault!” Preferably featuring WHITE PEOPLE since as the thinking goes (as exemplified in the “I Guess I’m a Racist” vid) :

    BLACKS <> NOT RACISTS : WHITES <> NOT LAZY ASS
    Ergo, all these people that you saw just now? NOT Lazy Ass.

    5. And definitely remember to show a mother with an innocent child who looks at her mother and asks, “Am I a lazy ass, mom?” That’s going to be some powerful shit.

  5. I would have suggested Asian Americans in the vid to make the strongest point because of the whole “Model Minority” stereotype — You know: We work hard. We pull ourselves up by the bootstraps. We are good workers. We hunker down and keep our goddamn mouths shut. We never complain. Yada yada yada — were it not for the other stereotype of Asian Americans being immigrants and foreigners. THAT would have served the enemy’s purpose: LOOK. The HCR IS going to provide insurance to foreigners. OMG!

  6. Some random lady “engaged” me on a debate on Twitter. Imagine debating someone on such a complex issue 140 characters at a time?!… Her argument comes down to: I have done my part. Why should I give more? The government should get out of the business of trying to tell ME how I should spend my (husband’s) hard-earned money. AND, this sort of sums up her position: “I pay tax because I HAVE TO. I give money to charity, through my church, already.” At that point, I said, “Do you seriously want to engage in a political debate with someone who was just talking about tits on Twitter?”

  7. That was the moment when I became deeply convinced that there is NO way we are going to change each other’s mind. None.

  8. That was the moment when I fell in love all over again with Jon Stewart.

p.s. Comedy Central’s blog post on this vid is called “I Guess I’m a Racist, Sexist, Puppy-Killing Psychopath Who Never Calls My Mom“…  The title IS the comment.

p.p.s. The funniest, most scathing, most intelligently sarcastic, and in my mind, the most effective comeback was found on The AWL:

“I’m of the opinion that it’s always great to see an oppressed group of people attempt to reclaim a word that has been used in the past to cause hurt and shame. I’m thrilled for Republicans that they’re trying to take the ‘racist’ label back.”

GOLD.